NORTH KOREA INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTATION PROJECT E-DOSSIER #11 EXPLAINING NORTH KOREAN MIGRATION TO CHINA NKIDP E-DOSSIER Introduction Explaining North Korean Migration to China 1 by Hazel Smith *** Documents included in this e-Dossier were obtained for NKIDP by Shen Zhihua and translated for NKIDP by Jeffrey Wang. DOCUMENT NO. 1 Opinions from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Handling the Issue of 5 Ethnic Koreans in the Northeast Illegally Crossing the Border to Korea, 17 December 1957 DOCUMENT NO. 2 Notification from the Ministry of Interior on Opinions relating to Marriages 6 between Chinese People and Korean Women, 18 October 1958 DOCUMENT NO. 3 Telegram from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Public Security to the 8 Chinese Embassy in North Korea on Illegal Border Crossing among Ethnic Koreans, May 1961 DOCUMENT NO. 4 Investigative Report from the 4th Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security 9 on the Outflow of Border Residents, 9 May 1961 DOCUMENT NO. 5 Report from the Ministry of Public Security on Illegal Border Crossings of 13 Ethnic Koreans from Liaoning, 10 May 1961 DOCUMENT NO. 6 Instructions from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Public 15 Security on the Issue of Ethnic Koreans Crossing the Border to Korea, 23 March 1962 DOCUMENT NO. 7 Telegram from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Public 17 Security on the Issue of Ethnic Koreans Crossing the Border to Korea, 24 March 1962 i www.wilsoncenter.org/nkidp NKIDP e-Dossier no. 11 DOCUMENT NO. 8 19 Instructions from the CCP Central Committee on Handling the Issue of Ethnic Koreans in the Northeast Going to Korea, 8 August 1963 DOCUMENT NO. 9 Report from Jilin Province on the Sino-Korean Border Region Usage of 20 Permits [for Border Crossings], 10 September 1963 DOCUMENT NO. 10 Protocol between the PRC Ministry of Public Security and the DPRK Social 21 Safety Ministry for Mutual Cooperation in Safeguarding National Security and Social Order in Border Areas, 9 June 1964 DOCUMENT NO. 11 Opinions from the State Council on Correctly Administering the Korean 26 Nationals Issue, 19 August 1970 ii www.wilsoncenter.org/nkidp NKIDP e-Dossier no. 11 Explaining North Korean Migration to China by Hazel Smith THE NORTH KOREA/CHINA BORDER REGION is often portrayed as a place of recent North Korean migration that started in the wake of famine of the early 1990s and which accelerated as poverty and economic hardships became a permanent feature of the North Korean economic landscape. This common knowledge is, however, only partially true and obscures as much as it illuminates: It ignores and is ignorant of the pre-existing fluidity of legal and illegal migration between the northern DPRK and the northern provinces of China. Importantly, the dominant narrative fails to understand that what was very new about the 1990s was not inter-country migration itself but the reversal of migration flow patterns. Prior to the 1990s, migration between the two countries was mainly a one-way traffic of ethnic Koreans of Chinese nationality heading south towards North Korea. Some contra-flow took place as North Korean women who had married Chinese men attempted, against North Korean government opposition, to move to China (Document No. 2). The last document in this series, from 1970, also presages changes in migration patterns as Chinese state authorities reminded local officials that North Koreans attempting illegally to cross the border into China should be repatriated (Document No. 11). These documents trace internal discussions within the Chinese government about border crossers between 1957 and 1970. Also reproduced here is the 1964 agreement on border crossers between the Chinese and North Korean governments (Document No. 10). The documents are most illuminating in their contribution to understanding the historical fluidity of cross-border migration, which in turn helps explain why border crossing to China was understood as a viable option for North Koreans in the early 1990s. The pull and push factors shaping North Koreans’ decision-making were that China’s economy developed exponentially at the same time as North Korea’s economy tanked. These documents show, however, that cross-border migration was already a familiar coping strategy for Koreans living in the China/DPRK border region. The only difference in the 1990s was the direction of flow. Ethnic Koreans of Chinese Nationality Migrate to the DPRK… in Their Droves Ethnic Koreans of Chinese nationality left China for the DPRK in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, legally and illegally, in order to escape famine, poverty and racial discrimination. These documents make clear that Chinese authorities were well aware that a major reason for ethnic Koreans crossing over to North Korea from the late 1950s onwards was because of the ‘temporary economic difficulties’ facing China. As China suffered famine and terrible economic hardship, ethnic Koreans saw a North Korea that was undergoing economic growth; where they had family relations and social networks; where they could speak the language; and, most of all, where they might not be hungry. For ethnic Koreans it was not too difficult to swap one authoritarian regime for another, as in the DPRK their civic lives improved by the very fact that they did not face discrimination because of their ethnicity, which, as these documents also record, they frequently confronted in China. For its part, the North Korean government offered work and economic opportunity to in-migrating Koreans because, as detailed here, the government faced labor shortages and saw ethnic Koreans from China as helpful in filling labor gaps. These documents testify to the non-ideological motivation of both in-migrating Koreans 1 www.wilsoncenter.org/nkidp Explaining North Korean migration to China and the North Korean government. Chinese-Koreans wanted work and food, and the North Korean government wanted workers. Both countries agreed that they should, in principle, return illegal migrants, but prior to the formal Protocol of 9 June 1964, the Chinese government noted that not all were returned by the DPRK. Indeed, as the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs complained in a May 1961 document translated here (Document No. 3), the North Korean government provided incentives for Koreans to stay in the DPRK, giving new settlers from China housing, grain, money and work on cooperative farms. Of the 28,028 persons discovered crossing the border into North Korea in 1961, over 7,000 stayed in North Korea. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was also concerned about the high numbers of people risking their lives to cross into the DPRK, with a 24 March 1962 telegram noting that 245 corpses had been found by the Yalu and Tumen rivers in North Korea in 1961, presumably drowning while trying to cross the border (Document No. 6). These documents show that the Chinese government took a rather sympathetic approach to the plight of ethnic Koreans in China. Legal migration was not forbidden, and at the level of policy pronouncements, the Chinese government supported improving conditions of life for ethnic Koreans living in China as well as making it easier for them to visit relatives in North Korea. A 1961 report from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security noted that border residents were “fleeing” China, but “we cannot treat the average fleeing resident as the enemy” (Document No. 4). The 1964 Protocol The 1964 Protocol was an attempt to differentiate between the different sorts of circumstances in which authorized and unauthorized migration took place between China and the DPRK and to regularize how the different types of border crossers should be treated by both states. The Protocol spells out how both countries should cooperate on a whole range of border issues. These include, for example, dealing with poultry and livestock straying over the border (they should be returned); assisting citizens who cross borders because of disasters such as fire, flood and, perhaps more curiously, “labor incidents”; the return of corpses washed up in the Yalu and Tumen rivers that divide the two territories; the opening times of border crossing posts; and the bureaucratic arrangements for convening meetings between the relevant authorities in both countries to monitor the agreement (Document No. 10). Article Four states that illegal border crossers should be sent back to their country of origin with the important caveat that unless the border crosser is a “criminal,” “those forced to cross the border as a result of disaster will not be treated as illegal border crossers.” Article Five specifies that that the security apparatus of both countries should cooperate actively in apprehending border crossers who are criminals and that these criminals include counterrevolutionaries as well as “basic criminals’ (Article Five). The controversy today as to whether China should send back North Korean migrants is largely based on how China interprets and implements Articles Four and Five of the 1964 Protocol. 2 www.wilsoncenter.org/nkidp NKIDP e-Dossier no. 11 Implementing Articles Four and Five of the 1964 Protocol China’s interpretation of the 1964 agreement has vacillated between leniency and stringency. It has, for example, rather generously interpreted Article Four. Article Four specifies that illegal border crossers should be repatriated except when border crossing is as a result of “disaster.” The 50,000 or so North Koreans living illegally in China are testament to Chinese toleration of North Korean migration as are the very frequent repeat border crossings by thousands of North Koreans who have found ways to frequently cross over to China and then go back home again; hence the phenomena of some advocacy agencies referring to North Koreans having “escaped” North Korea on numerous occasions. There are very well established trading routes across the border, some of these authorized and many not, but most are unimpeded by Chinese authorities.